Make the default behavior for the 'Quick Search' be 'post' view, versus 'thread' view. This way, you get more detail and it usually gets you closer to what you are looking for. With the way it is now, I feel, you have to wade through a whole thread, when your answer may lay within' in one 'post'.

With the save preferences, you can also limit which forums to always search only, i.e.: if you want to skip Off Topic, Marketplace, etc. by holding down your CTRL key on your keyboard while selecting which forums to search.

Alright, I tried the save search preferences function, but it did not do what I wanted it to. It saved my preferences when went 'advanced search'. But it does not save these preferences when I use the 'quick search' function, dropdown menu. So my original suggestion stands.